Andrew left the branch inscriptions to Rowan and Tyler for the day. They borrowed a couple of axes from the other group of survivors to clear trees the day before, but they had chopping of their own to do, and tools were in limited supply. It was time for them to start getting self-sufficient. That meant making tools instead of weapons, for once. So Andrew got to work, comfortably unloading the hundred pound anvil they scavenged from the hobgoblin camp and settling it down on one of the tree stumps on the edge of the clearing that the clearing team had yet to pull. Then he unloaded and reconstructed his personal mana forge on the ground nearby, and gathered his tools around it. The hobgoblin camp was mostly all carpentry tools, but he had a decent pair of tongs and a couple crucibles at least. It took him an hour or so to get everything set up, but once that was finished he found his groove easily. They had a plentiful supply of excess branches, three crates of about twenty ingots each, six crates of unprocessed ore, and two crates of hobgoblin scrap metal. They didn't have time to smelt all the ore in the hobgoblin camp, and ended up leaving a good amount of it behind at the mining camp. They also collectively had no idea how they would go about locating more ore. No one among them had any skill or previous experience material prospecting, but he hoped that one of the survivors in the camp would have some ideas on the subject. He was three levels away from a new Scavenger skill, and Material Sense had been an option there from the beginning, if all else failed, he could grab that and try it the system-assisted way.

He gathered all his basic materials around him and got to work, draining fire affinity from the ingots into a piece of scrap metal until it glowed red, hammering those ingots out into the rough crescent of an axe head, then siphoning metal affinity from several pieces of scrap until the axe heads shined with silver light. He made four unfinished axe heads one after another, draining a quarter box of scrap and four ingots in the process. Then he sat down and started whittling the fresh tree branches into long handled woodcutter's axe shafts. He was lending out his chisel to Rowan and Tyler today, so he used the mana infused edge of his spear to carve out the rough shapes before getting to work with the mundane knives and chisels they had recovered from the Hobgoblin carpentry shop. Once he was finished with all four handles he hammered the rough axe heads on and empowered the whole thing together.

You will become an axe. You will not break. Your edge will sharpen. You will conduct metal mana. You will become an axe.

As soon as each axe was finished it was passed off to the clearing team for their use. He finished the first three just before lunch, but held off on passing the third one off as the clearing team took their break. Instead he sat down and idly snacked on his meal with one hand, the other held over the axe head with Auto Inscription active, inscribing the same battery, trigger, expulsion rune set on its face. It was configured to release ten percent of the contained metal mana out in a sharp line along the blade's edge each time it was activated. It would need to be recharged every ten times it was used, and it added about an hour and a half to the finishing process. He passed the third axe off, explaining the runes on it's face as he did so, then closed his eyes to get started empowering the final axe. The modifications must have been effective, because as soon as he opened his eyes he was presented with a small crowd of woodcutters requesting similar additions to their tools. He was halfway finished inscribing the fourth axe when he had to take a break. The foreman from the other camp had just arrived, and was watching the clearing team tear through the forest with a healthy respect.

[Runic Artisan Level up]

Andrew stood and stretched before heading over to speak with the man. He was short, with a bald head and thick beard wearing patched cargo pants and an impressively well preserved long sleeve flannel rolled up to the elbows. He turned as Andrew approached and flashed him a grin, waggling his eyebrows. "Quite the operation you have here. Name's Jason." He said, extending a hand.

Andrew shook it, turning to observe the clearing team at work. Their pace was honestly dangerous, they had five axes between them and were already felling trees faster than the giants could clear and strip them. Once they were all inscribed… well, they wouldn't have much trouble clearing enough space for shelters, that was for sure. "Andrew, nice to meet'cha. I hear you're going to be helping us out with construction?"

"Yup. That’s what I'm here for. What's that guy over there got goin on?" He said, pointing to Carter who was absolutely carving through a tree with the inscribed axe. Each hit released a burst of silver energy which ripped a couple extra inches into the trunk.

"It's a magic axe I made. It's basically just firing little blades of mana out each time one of those bursts goes off. I can get a few set up for you sometime tomorrow if you'd like."

"Yeah, that would be awesome." He looked over at the little forge and anvil setup Andrew had nearby, nodding appreciatively. "You know, to be honest I thought you guys were going to be a bit of deadweight around here. You looked like you'd been through a hell of a fight, that’s for sure, but that shit right there? That’s a game changer. How much metal like that have you got?"

Ah shit. I wanted to keep the amount of metal we have on the down-low, but I don't want to lie to this guy. What am I even doing, looking to horde resources as soon as we meet another group of people? It's not like they're going to waste it.

"A couple more boxes about that size, and a good amount of raw ore as well. The hobgoblin camp we escaped from was an iron mine, so we grabbed whatever we could. "

"Hmm. Nice. Now, what were we thinkin of setting up out here?" Jason said, turning and looking around the ever expanding clearing.

"I'm honestly not sure, something simple and durable enough to last a while. Housing is the first priority. Storage space and workshops are going to be up next."

"No church or admin building?" Jason said, one eyebrow raised.

"Ah….. not, our first priority, no. Let's start with housing." Andrew said.

"Good, it's a damn waste of time if you ask me. Don't go telling George that though, that 'capitol' he has us workin on is goin to be a nightmare. He want's a true concrete foundation an' everything. Wood'll do just fine for a while, and I don't expect I'll see him out here diggin limestone or breaking rocks, that's for sure. Uh, I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone I said that. Most of the town are religious loonies like him these days."

"Whew, had me worried for a moment there. Your secret's safe with me, that’s most of the reason we're out here and not crammed into one of those cabins with the rest of you. Concrete though? You guys can make that out here?"

"Yeah, of course. We got lucky with the limestone in the river there, but it's pretty simple, just rocks and water for the most part." Jason, gave him a bit of a searching look as he spoke. "You guys really don't have much experience with this sort of thing do you? Most of the people in our camp were tradesmen or agriculture types, none of you thought to make concrete?"

"No, not at all." Andrew paused trying to remember the stories told around the campfire's back at the hobgoblin camp. "It's mostly service industry and cubicle workers, now that I think of it. Huh. Well it's a good thing we found you guys then, you'll have to let us know when you need someone to organize your taxes or something." Andrew said with a chuckle.

That is weird though. Shelby said something similar about most of our group coming out of big cities. Is there some kind of pattern to the way people were transported in? It can't be based on region alone, most of us are from different cities across the U.S., but we all speak english, so that has to play in to a certain degree. There are plenty of people who don't speak english in the U.S. though, and we haven't ran into anyone like that so far either. Some kind of cultural grouping? We can understand the giants just fine, but not the goblins or hobgoblins, maybe there's some kind of translation between transported races? Hmm. I wish those messages in the beginning explained more.

Andrew's thoughts were interrupted by Jason politely clearing his throat. "Did you catch that?"

"Ah, shit, no, sorry I was thinking about something, what'd you say?"

"Ha, you're fine. I was just ramblin a bit. If it were me, I'd keep a bit of distance between your buildings and that river. The wood foundations'll work for a while, but you'll be getting moisture and mildew eventually, especially once summer's over, so if you've got any magic to seal things up tight you'll want ta use it to lock up your floorboards. We don't have time to let the logs dry out properly either, so we'll have to plan for some shrinkage, but it's still better than sleepin out in the rain. The way this levelin stuff is going, I figure most guys'll be strong enough to tear em down and build em right, way before they start havin those kinds of problems."

"Okay. Yeah, that makes sense to me. You know, I might have a way to dry those logs out faster, but I have a couple more axes to get done today, can I pass you off to Arges for now? He's the one in charge of the tree clearing group out there. He should have a few free hands for you to work with, and he'll have a better idea of what kind of materials we have available than I do."

Jason was quick to agree, and though he was a bit intimidated by the giant at first he warmed up quickly. Soon after he was leading a group of four around the clearing, pacing out plots of land and joking around with the three humans and one giant. It also left Andrew free to return to his work. He had to take a moment to siphon metal affinity into the mundane hobgoblin axes before he could inscribe them, but he still managed to get all six axes fully finished before they broke for the day.